Forget and forgive, p.1
Forget & Forgive, page 1
Forget & Forgive
L.A. Witt
Contents
Artificial Intelligence
Forget & Forgive
1. Owen
2. Matteo
3. Owen
4. Matteo
5. Owen
6. Matteo
7. Owen
8. Matteo
9. Owen
10. Matteo
11. Owen
12. Matteo
13. Owen
14. Matteo
15. Owen
16. Matteo
17. Owen
Epilogue
Also by L.A. Witt
Also by L.A. Witt
About the Author
Copyright Information
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Forget & Forgive
First edition
Copyright © 2024 L.A. Witt
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Cover Art by L.A. Witt
Editor: Mackenzie Walton
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact L.A. Witt at gallagherwitt@gmail.com
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-64230-180-9
Paperback ISBN: 979-8-87043-426-1
Created with Vellum
Artificial Intelligence
No artificial intelligence was used in the making of this book or any of my books. This includes writing, co-writing, cover artwork, translation, and audiobook narration.
I do not consent to any Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarize, train from, or otherwise replicate any part of this creative work, via any means: print, graphic, sculpture, multimedia, audio, or other medium. This applies to all existing AI technology and any that comes into existence in the future.
I support the right of humans to control their artistic works.
Forget & Forgive
It’s been a year to the day since Matteo Segreto’s biggest mistake ruined the best thing he ever had, and nothing’s been the same. All he can do is try to move on, but his world is empty without the love of his life. Alone and consumed by regret, Matteo would do anything to undo the past.
Then his ex shows up, panicked and begging for his help… with no memory of their breakup.
Owen Carter just woke up to a world that’s all wrong. Everything in his condo is different. The streets outside have changed. Worst of all, his boyfriend clearly doesn’t live with him anymore.
To his horror, he discovers that a year has passed since he went to bed last night. His memory of that entire time is wiped clean, and only a receipt from a creepy fae shop offers any clue as to how or why.
While they work to recover Owen’s memory, the exes slam face first into the past that Matteo wishes he could forget. Despite the hurt and betrayal, they also can’t help but remember how much they once loved each other.
But if Owen gets his memory back and truly remembers the hell Matteo put him through, is there enough love or forgiveness to keep them together?
Forget & Forgive is a 50,000-word standalone amnesia romance with fantasy/paranormal elements.
Content warning: infidelity (off-screen and past, but major part of the story)
Chapter 1
Owen
The sound that pulled me out of the darkness was so unfamiliar, it took a moment to realize it wasn’t part of the dream I’d been having.
What song is that?
I didn’t recognize the melody or the lyrics, though the voice was vaguely familiar. Before I could designate a brain cell or two to figure out which band or singer it was, I jolted a step closer to awake and realized I didn’t have a radio. Where the hell was that music coming from?
My bedroom was pitch dark thanks to the blackout curtains, but I followed the sound to my glowing, vibrating phone on the nightstand. I picked it up and squinted at the screen.
My 7:30 alarm was going off. I silenced it, and I shut off the 7:45 and 8:00 alarms, too, since I was wide awake now. How the hell had my alarm been turned to a song I hadn’t even heard before?
But as the fog of sleep slowly cleared away, I chuckled and rolled my eyes. Matteo must have been pranking me. He’d never messed with my alarm before, but there was a first time for everything.
At that thought, an uncomfortable feeling needled at me. That ominous certainty that I was missing an important… something.
Because my alarm had a different sound? Okay, that was ridiculous. Whatever I’d been dreaming about had stuck with me on some unconscious level, and I just needed to grab a shower, pour some coffee down my throat, and shake off last night.
No, something really is wrong.
Yeah. Something in my brain that just needed caffeine and a shower to click back into normal mode.
I switched on the bedside light and squinted until my eyes adjusted. When they had, I swept a look around the room.
And that nebulous discomfort turned into a surge of full-blown panic.
“What the fuck?” I whispered as I rose, still looking around.
This was my bedroom. The bed, nightstands, and one of the dressers were the same cherry wood set that had been there when I’d shut off the light last night. The lamp I’d turned on. The blackout curtains covering the windows. Even the laundry basket—pale blue with a crack under one handle—was right.
But the basket was full of folded shirts, not socks and underwear.
And the second dresser was gone.
On the wall, instead of the framed photo of me and Matteo in Yosemite, there was a picture of my sister, her two daughters, and me at… I didn’t even recognize the place. A lake with some mountains in the background, both kids holding up what looked like rainbow trout. I had no memory of that photo being taken, or of whatever trip or hike we might’ve been on. And I was pretty sure I would’ve noticed—and remembered—my sister being visibly pregnant.
A chill went all the way to my bones. Apparently my gut had been right—something was wrong.
I slowly turned and took in the other side of the bed. It wasn’t rumpled the way it always was after Matteo had left for work. The pillow was flat and unremarkable, not the special one he used to support his neck. The nightstand was still there, but it was bare except for the other lamp. No cell phone charger. No water bottle.
“Matteo?” I whispered into the silence, my voice ragged with a degree of fear and confusion I’d never experienced before. “What the…”
Every fucking thing had been here last night. Including the man who couldn’t sleep without his neck-supporting pillow.
In a panic, I hurried to the closet and whipped open the door.
One side was… not empty, but it wasn’t full of Matteo’s things. There were some random boxes on the shelf where his folded scrubs were supposed to be. Of the hangers on that side, maybe six were occupied with some of my shirts and pants, as if I’d just stuck a few things over there to deal with later or take to the dry cleaner. His shoes were gone. That box of veterinary school textbooks he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of was gone.
Heart pounding, I strode into the bathroom and flicked on the light.
One razor. One toothbrush. One stick of deodorant. None of them Matteo’s.
As I wandered the condo, taking stock of all the missing evidence of my boyfriend, the panic intensified because they weren’t just gone—they’d been gone. Other items—things of mine—had crept into the places where all his were supposed to be, from the closet to the bathroom to the living room and kitchen.
And the more I took in the situation, the more I realized everything had changed. Matteo had all but disappeared, but nothing else was the same either. The Boston fern hanging in the living room window was noticeably bigger than it had been last night. The dishes I’d left in the strainer were gone, and the three-quarter empty bottle of soap by the sink was now almost full. The stack of mail on the counter was… different. Not the same envelopes. Not quite the same place.
The chairs on the balcony were metal instead of the decrepit plastic pair I’d been meaning to get rid of. Instead of three succulents on the coffee table, there were six, including one that still had a tag from the store. I didn’t recognize the sleek laptop sitting on the end table where mine should’ve been charging.
All those small details were almost more unsettling than the bigger picture. Instead of things—not to mention my boyfriend—just vanishing overnight, they’d been gone for a while.
I leaned against the kitchen island, struggling to absorb all of this and not have a complete panic attack. I wasn’t prone to them, but I defied anyone not to short circuit in the face of… this.
Okay. Okay. This was… Whatever it was, it was happening. Before I did anything, I needed to pull myself together, take a few deep breaths, and figure out a plan.
A plan. Right. Because I could totally make a plan when my
Breathe, Owen. One thing at a time. Just breathe.
I closed my eyes and did exactly that for at least a solid minute. So long that when I opened them again, I half-expected my world to have snapped back to normal. Or to find myself still lying in darkness in my bed, waiting for my alarm to go off and tell me I needed to get ready for work.
Work. Oh fuck.
Renewed panic had me nearly hyperventilating. I couldn’t go to work right now. Not like this. Not until I had a handle on… I don’t know. Something?
I strode back into my bedroom and snatched my phone off the nightstand, ready to call in sick.
I paused, though, when my lockscreen came up. Where was that picture of Matteo and me from New Year’s?
Of course it was gone. Every shred of evidence that he’d ever been here was gone, so why not there, too?
Had someone, like, figured out time travel, gone back six years, and given one of us a flat tire on the way to that party where we’d met?
My chest tightened just thinking about that. Life without Matteo… Life without ever even meeting him… That was too much.
I shook myself and cleared my throat. Then I went to my contacts, pulled up my boss, and sent the call. For a second, I was sure it wouldn’t go through. That I’d get some message that the number was out of service, and I’d find out the credit union no longer existed or that I didn’t work there anymore.
But no, I made it right to my boss’s desk, and though I wasn’t overly fond of her, I was relieved to hear a familiar voice.
“Thank you for calling Gryphon Credit Union; this is Ruth. How may I help you?”
“Hi, it’s Owen,” I said. “Listen, uh… I need to call out for a couple of days.” That probably wouldn’t be long enough, but I had to start somewhere.
On the other end, Ruth sighed in that familiar way. “I’m short-staffed. Are you sure you can’t make it in? Not even for a half shift?”
“I wish I could, but there’s a family emergency that I really need to—”
“All right, all right. Fine. Just keep me posted.”
“I will. Thanks.”
We ended the call, and I was a little bit relieved. This didn’t solve a damn thing in my fucked-up world, but at least I didn’t have to go to work right in the middle of it.
Now. With that out of the way…
I put my phone on the nightstand, sat on the edge of the bed, and stared at the floor. I took some more slow, deep breaths as I tried—tried—to stay calm and piece together what had happened and what was happening.
Last night was clear as day in my mind. Matteo had come home from a conference. He’d been too tired to fool around, but that was fine. I’d just been happy to have him back after a long week apart. We’d fallen asleep and…
And here I was.
Alone. With no trace of Matteo. With no sign that he’d ever been here at all.
I hadn’t run afoul of the fae, had I? I mean, I’d had to decline a business loan for one last month, and he’d been livid over it, but that wasn’t usually enough to warrant trickster fuckery. After all, it had been the credit union’s policies, not my decision. My hands had been tied, and I was pretty sure he’d understood that on some level.
Still. A pissed-off fae—especially one who was insulted—could be as irrational and impulsive as a pissed-off human. One of those humans had slashed a colleague’s tires over a foreclosure, so was it really out of the realm of possibility that an angry fae had done something to screw with my life? Or my mind? Or both?
I wiped a shaky hand over my face and exhaled. Was this magic? Some kind of revenge? A brain tumor?
And who could I tell? They’d all think I was insane and… I mean, they might not have been wrong. In that moment, I felt the farthest from sane I’d ever been aside from that one time I did a few too many edibles at once. At least I was pretty sure that wasn’t happening right now. I’d never forget the feeling of being way too high with my thoughts slippery, not to mention resetting every few minutes. This morning, I was definitely lucid. I was thinking clearly. Wasn’t I?
God. I needed to talk to someone. Ideally someone who was good under pressure and could sort this out rationally while I mentally unraveled the way I was thisclose to doing.
I was tempted to reach out to my sister, but that photo on the wall in my bedroom made me reconsider. I had no idea when it had been taken, so she could still be pregnant, or she could be dealing with a newborn who made her run on twelve minutes of sleep. No, she didn’t need this stress. Not now.
So that left…
I ran through names of friends and family, but my mind kept lurching back to one person in particular. Both because he had the calmest head in a crisis, and because I wanted some damn answers about why he wasn’t here.
Matteo.
He was a veterinarian who worked with exotics, including some of the more dangerous ones. Thinking on his feet and staying cool in chaos? That was a hundred percent Matteo.
I grabbed my phone again, went to my contacts, and—
He wasn’t there.
There weren’t any texts or calls from him either. Not even the ones I distinctly remembered exchanging yesterday afternoon when he’d let me know his flight had landed and I’d told him I was waiting at baggage claim. I knew those texts had existed because I could still feel the little flutter of oh my God, you’re home when my screen had lit up with a simple message of, On the ground.
But they were gone. The messages. The text window. The man I’d been eagerly waiting to see. There was no evidence of him in my phone or in my condo.
What in the actual hell?
The panic that welled in me this time almost had me falling apart for real. Did Matteo even exist? Had I hallucinated our entire relationship or something?
Hands shaking, I switched to an internet browser and looked up the name of his clinic. It came up, and—
There.
Matteo Segreto, D.V.M.
A photo, too, though that made me do a serious double take. I’d been with him for six years, and I’d never seen him that gaunt. And even last night, after a week at a conference (which always wore him out) and the long day of traveling home, he hadn’t had circles that dark under his eyes. He usually had a bright smile in his office photo, too. His expression in this one made me think the photographer had all but begged him to at least humor him and try to smile, and this was the best Matteo could muster.
Suddenly I needed to see him. Immediately. I was freaking the fuck out about whatever had happened to my life and my mind, and now I also needed to know what in God’s name happened to my boyfriend.
I tossed my phone aside and got up to get dressed. In minutes, I was out the door, and my panic didn’t get any better, because my condo wasn’t the only thing that had changed.
I tried not to notice that the chip in my windshield was gone. I insisted to myself that the gas station on the corner had changed to a different chain months ago and I just hadn’t noticed. But goddammit, I wouldn’t have overlooked when that old apartment building had been demolished, and I sure as shit would’ve noticed when it was replaced by a gleaming new CVS. In fact, I had just been telling Matteo like two weeks ago that it was going to collapse and kill someone.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I was pretty sure I ran a red light.
I was absolutely sure I didn’t care.
Because I needed to get my terrified ass to Matteo’s clinic now.
Chapter 2
Matteo
“Are you sure that doesn’t need stitches?” My vet tech Lia craned her neck to peer at the towel I was holding around my forearm. “Because I think it needs stitches.”
